Trial By Fire
by Midnight Voyager
Summary: All nature weeps for the little girl who just wanted to help...
1. The Trial

Celestial councils are a sight to see... beings of all shapes, sizes, and especially colors line beautifully decorated hallways of every color imaginable. Yet today, the halls are draped with the deepest, darkest shade of black imaginable. A little girl kneels in the center of the room, wearing a straight, white shift. Her black hair flows down her shoulders and her eyes burn with a blue flame that rivals the golden-flamed candles lining the room.  
  
The candles... the candles cry for her, the wax tears pooling at their feet. The bells mourn for her, tolling twelve times to signal midnight. The stars cry with the candles, shooting across the sky in a brilliant display of tears. Even the moon mourns, high clouds surrounding it in a hazy veil.  
  
Not only nature cries for the doomed girl. An amazing figure, no more than sixteen looms in a corner, tears flowing down his bronzed face. His blonde hair and chalk-white eyes create a magnificent spectacle, yet the depths of his sadness reach lower than the depths of the universe. And he makes it painfully obvious in his voice as he speaks.  
  
"Please... she is only a little girl! She was simply protecting her brother!" The sadness in his voice is that of one who has lost all reason to live.  
  
"We cannot let her go. She harbored a criminal." The council seems somehow unaffected by the sorrowful sight in front of them. The head member, a supremely tall man with a peculiarly greenish set of scales stands and motions to a corner. "Bring in the other one."  
  
A tall boy, no older than the first, is lead in by a chain leash. His appearence seems almost animal; he whimpers like a mother tiger who has lost her cubs as he looks towards the small girl. His brown eyes drip with tears and his blonde hair swirls around his forehead in a matted mop atop his head. "Don't hurt her for what I did! Please... please..." he speaks, sounding more animal than man.  
  
All the while, the pristine figure of the girl kneels in the middle of the room, in her little circle of moonlight created by the open roof. Her face shows no sign of emotion as her two brothers plead for her safety. She didn't know what he had done! Why was she to be punished? And why was he to be punished for something he didn't do?  
  
"But she is destined to be the Guardian!"  
  
The mention of the prophecy he was sent to herald doesn't even faze the council. The ring in their pockets of the young one's father's gold is still all to evident as they go on. "Rise, young one. Do you have anything to say?"  
  
The little girl, no more than ten, stands and faces the council. A long breath echoes through the halls... then she begins. "I stand before you today..." Her solid, sure voice rings out through the hallways... then she sees them. The giant man in the corner... her father, and the convicted's father. Her mother and the defendant's mother. Those two people, far away... yet something's wrong. The man's hand grasps the woman's throat in a choking hold as he pulls the dagger from his cloak.  
  
"Young one, are you continuing?"  
  
Her mother's eyes... oh, those turquoise eyes, so full of fear and pain as the dagger slides into her chest again and again... but her father? He laughs... But what's this? Another vision? Yes, that's it... her father with the councilmen... oh, it's all so clear now!  
  
"Young one?"  
  
The girl's gaze returns to reality and she begins again, her voice full of anger and grief. "I stand before you today, my murderers!"  
  
A gasp resounds across the halls... then silence as she speaks again.  
  
"You're murdering me. You're murdering my brother. And you might as well have murdered my mother!" The tears are coming fast now, flooding down her face like a stream of liquid diamonds. "Yet I can do nothing about it. That is all I wish to say to you."  
  
The council recoils in shock. I don't know if it was anger, shock... or their consciences, but those very words brought her sentance that very hour. "Take them away and execute them now!" 


	2. Flame of Joy

The two young ones knelt in the center of the circle of moonlight. The robed councilmembers stood solemnly... one thought going through each of their minds. 'Is this the right thing?'  
  
The blonde youth stood nearby, weeping with grief as the little girl smiled and gazed at him... yet even the hopeful, comforting, innocent smile could not hide her grief. Her mind called to him.  
  
"Riae Seiden..." he whispered aloud, brokenly. Flame of Joy... that name fit her so well... She had been a light and a joy to all who knew her... and now they were killing her.  
  
  
  
The boy gazed at her, as if not understanding what she said.   
  
  
  
Adam's eyes opened wide. They burned in anger, like a white-hot flame.   
  
All these words passed silently between them, their minds speaking more easily than their voices... Adam's eyes brimmed with tears once more as he saw his beautiful, sweet little sister kneeling in the moonlight.   
  
Her feral brother knelt beside her, his arm gently laid across her shoulders. She had always loved Chisen, though he seemed at times more animal than man. She had been the only one able to calm him... to bring out the boy inside him.  
  
The pain he must be feeling... and his brown eyes showed it. The usual hard glint they held was replaced by a dull mask of sadness and anguish. Adam had never seen him cry... the sight was heart-wrenching.  
  
Yet everyone in the room had begun to feel it. Their consience was regaining new power... the gold in their pockets seemed hot as the surface of a star. Yet they went on, reciting the charges and giving the small squadron before them their orders. As they turned and aimed their weapons at the pair, they felt an awful pulling... something inside them saying 'Stop! This isn't right! You can't kill those children!' Yet they resisted as well.  
  
"One!"  
  
The air fell absolutely silent. The little girl's blue eyes shone on, calm as ever.  
  
"Two!"  
  
Chisen whimpered softly. Riae set her hand on his shoulder comfortingly... suddenly a spark of anger shone in her eyes, disrupting the calmness like a rock tossed into still water.  
  
"Three!"  
  
A loud, stark *CLICK* sounded. Weapons were readied with practiced ease in exact unison. The spark in the girl's eyes grew into a roaring flame, her eyes flushing a blood-red.  
  
She stood. The candles flared up, each one a piller of anger and hate. The fire swirled about the room, circling the girl and the youth.  
  
Riae held her hands up and a shielf of flames formed around her and the boy. She laughed as the bullets melted before reaching through it. Her brother was safe! The shield of flames snapped into a somewhat-solid dome... their color drained away. The two were encased in a sheath of darkness, dark as the child firebrand's hair.  
  
Adam heard his sister's breathless thoughts.  
  
  
  
she gasped.   
  
The shield faltered for a moment... that was all the frightened soldiers needed. Water was produced from the river outside and thrown over the children.  
  
Riae dropped to the floor, shivering.   
  
Adam's eyes widened in horror as a sound like a thunderclap rang out. The two children were riddled with bullet holes... Riae's display of her new ability was enough to frighten the men into action.  
  
  
  
Adam screamed and hid his eyes...  
  
Yet the massacre continued. Two more rounds were emptied into the children... their blood flowed across the circle of moonlight until the crimson streams were lost in darkness.  
  
"Murderers..." Adam groaned, falling to his knees.  
  
The tears of the candles froze on their waxen faces. The sky cried tears of silver... the fine mist of rain reflecting the stars in the oddly-clear sky. It was said that the heavens must have cried blood that night... the shooting stars turned red in their anguish.  
  
Time passed... the council was gone and the children were left for a later cremation.  
  
Yet...  
  
"Did we just survive... a firing squad?" 


	3. Up in Smoke

Days passed... the Council and the murderous father came to justice...  
  
Weeks... months... years... decades... time marched on as it always had and always will until the end... yet that isn't the end of this story.  
  
--  
  
A pair of blue eyes gazed at the burning building, the flames reflected in their sparkling depths. "There's still someone in there!"  
  
The decades had matured the child into a beautiful woman. Her many troubles had strengthened her resolve. Necessity and her many abilities had turned into a strong fighter. She was most certainly "The Guardian", as her brother had proclaimed. And she had a job to do.  
  
"I'll come in with ya," a deep, gravelly voice sounded just behind her. He had been through just as much as she, with the same results. His wild, black hair was hidden under a strange mask, which also hid the hard glint in his blue eyes.  
  
She turned to him, her costume being a shadowy mirror of his own. "Logan, I'll be just fine on my own... and safer! You worry too much!"  
  
He pulled her close in his arms, gently running his fingers through her hair. For some reason, everyone there was feeling apprehensive...  
  
And there were others in similarly strange costumes. They were called Alpha Flight and they existed to protect... or so they thought, but I'll not get into that.  
  
She turned to them and offered a trademark grin before pulling an extention of her mask across her face. "Cheer up, guys, I'll be out in only a second!"  
  
With that, she turned and vanished into the plumes of smoke. The layer over her face effectively filtered out the harmful smoke so she could see and breathe, yet the air she breathed was still thick and hot.  
  
Her eyes took in everything in the building as she ran through. It had been a world-renown college science center... in Canada, of all places. All the professors had been accounted for. 'That means whoever's in there is a kid,' she thought with a sigh. 'The smoke messes with my blasted senses... I wish t- wait.'  
  
A soft sound like a cry for help came from her immediate left. "Keep yelling!" she called.  
  
Luckily, the boy didn't disregard her warning. Within moments, she was there and prying a piece of the cieling off the student.  
  
"Wh-who are you?" he gasped as the pressure was released from his chest. Adjusting his broken glasses, he continued fearfully; "D-Don't hurt me, please!"  
  
"I'm not, kiddo... I'm here to help. Name's Wildcat." Though she was a very short person, she didn't find it too hard to help the boy to his feet. "You okay...?"  
  
"Peter Parker... and I'm fine. Thanks- WHO ARE THEY?"  
  
He had good reason to be alarmed. A blonde man, eyes white as snow, filled the doorway. I say 'filled' because that was the effect his immensely tall, broad-shouldered body created in the normal-sized doorway. In front of him stood the much-smaller, yet just-as-scary Logan.  
  
"It's okay, Parker," she said, glancing over her shoulder. "And didn't I tell you to stay outside, Wolverine?"  
  
"Y'did. But when was I one to listen?" He smirked slightly and stepped forward, giving Peter Parker a hand. "Anything I can do ta help?"  
  
"Yeah, get him outta here." The urgent look her brother was giving her told her something was up. She watched the other two leave and glanced up at her suddenly-present relative. "What's so important that y' couldn't wait 'til I got out, 'Sabretooth'? Or do ya like being called Victor better nowadays?" Her tone was slightly sarcastic... though she felt odd about the whole thing.  
  
"The Program... they're here. We have to get out of h-"  
  
The man never finished his urgent plea. With a sound like rain against a tin roof, darts peppered Wildcat, sending her to her knees.  
  
The flames gathered around her once again to protect her... yet it was all too late. The child who had been saved so long ago was forced to relive a nightmare...  
  
--  
  
Outside, everyone gathered, watching and waiting. Something was wrong... it had been five minutes since he left her in there!  
  
"Why did I leave, damnit!" Wolverine cursed, glaring at the building as if it itself had committed the crime of keeping his wife away.  
  
"I'm sure she's alright..."  
  
Yet at that moment, an explosion rocked the area... All their hopes went up in smoke, as the building did the same thing... 


End file.
